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Alvarez heavier than Plant for unification bout

AFP

Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Caleb Plant were kept apart once more on Friday as they both made the weight for this weekend’s super-middleweight unification fight in Las Vegas.

Mexican star Alvarez drew blood after punching Plant below the right eye when the two fighters faced off at a press conference in Los Angeles in September to launch Saturday’s fight at the MGM Grand.

On Friday, WBA, WBC and WBO champion Alvarez and IBF title-holder Plant were kept around five feet apart by event staff after weighing in for their long-awaited showdown.

Both boxers appeared to exchange verbal barbs as they were prevented from coming any closer.

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Alvarez, 31, who is a heavy favorite to win on Saturday, tipped the scales bang on the 168-pound weight limit.

The 29-year-old Plant, meanwhile, came in just under the limit at 167 pounds.

Alvarez can become only the sixth male fighter since the WBO began sanctioning world title fights in 1988 to hold all four belts from boxing’s separate governing bodies simultaneously.

Only five other boxers — Oleksandr Usyk (cruiserweight), Bernard Hopkins (middleweight), Jermain Taylor (middleweight), Terence Crawford (super-lightweight) and Josh Taylor (super-lightweight) — have held all four belts at once.

Alvarez (56-1-2, 38 knockouts) is considered a prohibitive 1/12 favorite while Plant (21-0, 12 knockouts) is a 6/1 underdog.

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Plant is adamant he is capable of springing a surprise against Alvarez, who battered Britain’s Billy Joe Saunders into submission with an eight-round stoppage in Arlington, Texas, in his last fight.

“I have to get the job done by any means necessary,” Plant said. “That’s what me and my team have done so far to get to this point. Whether it’s boxing or in life, I’ve gotten here by any means necessary.

“I’ve been the underdog before. It’s a place I like to be. I like people rooting against me. It gives me extra motivation, but when you’re fighting for undisputed status, you don’t need much more motivation than that.”

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FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Mexico and Deported to U.S.

Authorities in Mexico announced Thursday that Samuel Ramírez Jr., a U.S. citizen accused of murdering two women and listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Ramírez Jr., 33, was detained Tuesday in Culiacán just 1 hour and 13 minutes after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Ten Most Wanted list, the agency said in a statement.

The suspect, who was born in California, has already been deported to the U.S. state of Washington, where he faces charges related to the fatal shooting of two women at a bar in Federal Way in May 2023.

A court issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez in November last year, and the FBI initially offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his capture, later increasing the amount to up to $1 million.

“To protect individuals’ privacy and ensure continued cooperation from the public, the FBI does not confirm the identity of those who provide information,” the agency said in its statement.

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UN experts warn Nicaragua runs vast transnational network to monitor exiled dissidents

Nicaragua maintains an “extensive” transnational network to monitor and intimidate opposition figures living in exile, affecting “hundreds of thousands” of people, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, the experts said their report “details an extensive transnational architecture of surveillance and intelligence used to monitor, intimidate and attack the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living abroad.”

The report, which will be presented on March 16 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, states that the structure maintained by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo includes the army, the police, migration authorities and diplomatic missions.

According to the statement, “the government has arbitrarily stripped 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, left thousands more exiled in a situation of de facto statelessness, and prevented many from returning to Nicaragua.”

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Trump: ‘We Think It’s True’ Amid Claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Killed

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports claiming the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the U.S. and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic are likely true, though he stopped short of confirming the news.

“We have a feeling that the information is correct,” he said, according to NBC News. “I don’t want to say anything definitive until I see it, but we think that’s the case. And many of their leaders have disappeared,” he added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many indications” that Khamenei had died in an attack on his residential compound.